WASHINGTON, D.C. has dangled hotel discounts tied to the Chinese Lunar New Year. Arizona has promoted its outdoor attractions to draw visitors during another popular Chinese holiday. San Francisco has expanded its social media presence on Chinese apps to market year-round travel to millennial tourists.

Across the country, the U.S. tourism industry is trying to counter one of the casualties of the trade tensions with China that is still raging despite this month’s temporary truce: A drop in the flow of affluent Chinese visitors to the U.S. As the conflict has dragged on for 15 months with no meaningful breakthrough, the travel industry is trying to minimize the damage.

It has a good reason. An enlarged Chinese middle class has become a lucrative market for the U.S. travel industry. Close to 3 million Chinese tourists visited the U.S. last year. And they spent liberally: An estimated average of US$6,700 per person per trip — exceeding the average spending of international tourists by more than 50 percent, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

Concerns among U.S. tourism agencies have grown as China has warned that Chinese travellers to the United States may face harassment. Compounding the problem is increased difficulty in obtaining U.S. visas.

The number of visitors from China dropped nearly 4 percent in the first half of this year after a nearly 6-percent drop in 2018. More broadly, the U.S. share of the global travel market has slipped in the past year, and travel and hospitality groups blame the trade conflicts and intensified competition from rival countries.

To close the gap, they’ve urged the government to extend funding for the U.S. national tourism marketing agency and to work more closely with overseas trade fairs and tour groups.

(SD-Agencies)